The secret of success in life is for a person to be ready for their opportunity when it comes. ~Benjamin Disraeli

You may have asked yourself, “Am I ready to sell my business?” Shouldn’t you also ask, “Is my business ready to sell”? It is very important that you can answer affirmative to both questions because an unexpected offer or an unwanted event could happen at any time, causing the need to sell on short notice. Most likely you won’t be able to sell if you and your business aren’t ready. If you are fortunate enough to sell then, you likely won’t be happy with the results and you likely won’t get the full potential from the sale of your business.

Unfortunately, the odds are against business owners, because very few do the proper preparations and planning. In the book “Valuation for M&A” by Chris M. Mellen and Frank C. Evans, they state: “Merger and acquisition (M&A) advisors disqualify roughly 65% to 75% of prospective sellers and, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Study, only 20% of the businesses that are for sale will successfully transfer hands to another owner. This implies that only 5% to 7% of companies actually get sold.”

We can help you prepare yourself and your business for a successful sale. Indeed, it is difficult to sell a business. The skills necessary to make your business more valuable to buyers as well as to plan a successful transition out of your business are very different from the skills needed to build a business.

To help you (the Business Owner) to be better prepared yourself for the sale of your business, we offer two services.

Second, we offer the “What’s Next?” Self-Assessment that determines your emotional readiness for the sale of your business and provides you steps to help you become more ready.

Both are very important to address. It is important to know whether the after-tax, after-fees, risk, and inflation adjusted net proceeds from the sale of your business will meet your financial goals. It is also important to know whether your need for identity, purpose, and social network will be met once you transition out of your business. An indication of the growing problem in this area, is the increasing rate of “gray divorces”.

To help your business to be better prepared for the eventual sale, we offer a process that helps to increase the value of your business by both improving the profitability and decreasing the perceived risk that a potential buyer would see in your business. We also prioritize the steps based on your biggest bang for the buck and assist you in implementing these steps. You will realize a very good return on the value of the investment.